narrative inks

With the majority of the story sketched out and panels considered i could begin the inking process, at the start of this module i was introduced to a brilliant paper stock found in layout pads. You can slide your pencils under the paper and it remains a strong white with a semi transparency, this made inking the book a very quick and fairly pain free exercise, any sections or panels which weren't quite right could be very quickly sketched again until the end result sufficed.

 once i had inked the full 12 pages i set about working out which bits needed touching up and trying to visualise if and how i could make collage and dialogue fit into the design.

aesthetically i was very heavily influenced by Mike Mignola's work on hellboy, the graphic chiseled quality to the tones and shadow, Michael Lark's work on Lazarus and daredevil for its oriental and impressionistic mark making qualities, and Dave Mckean's Violent Cases and The Savage, the range of mark making again was very influential as well as his use of colour for suggestion and mood

 some of the panels i took it upon myself to redraw, either because the pencil drawing was too sloppy so the inks turned out naff, or i slipped with pen when inking. This whole project came together so fast almost solely down to the Pentel GKFP, an amazing brush pen that allows for unparalleled efficency and quality of fill, i ended up draining four cartridges of ink on the whole project seemed to run out to fast.    
  

Narrative

with the two other projects fairly close to finished i have decided to turn my attention to the narrative project, with the initial storyboards complete and references of my budding models things could get underway. My first step was to pencil out the scenes again with the reference to inform the sketching further, i had been fairly thorough when considering placement and narrative progression this saved me an awful lot of time when throwing pages together.

 this opening page was an effort to introduce the town, saint Lawrence church (above) was something i knew i had to include but that gave me some difficulty when trying to reproduce it. the tankard is supposed to symbolise the breweries of which pump industry and money into the town.

 this page is suggesting the motivation of the central antagonist a truly evil man played by my friend Jolyon, his girlfriend posed alongside as the young Fanny Adams which required some mental altercations to scale and proportions. it was a something of a learning curve but one which i am now slightly better prepared for should it arise again.

 i posed for the characters on this page, when the head of the poor young girl is discovered, it was found later at night in a hop field impaled upon two spikes, quite minor considering the extent of the rest of the attack. It is said the next day the whole town and even tourists just passing through took to the hop field trying to find any remnants, picnics in toe it was seen as a morbid victorian sunday.

final sign

another project that has perhaps taken far too long is the pub sign, i have finally added text to the image and yet again redrawn the mantling, this time to a standard that is in keeping with the rest of the design.

 three very gradual stages of development, the only real change to the image above is the mantling which i cleaned up and made slightly more rounded to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing. However i found the actual mantling itself quite subtle and almost difficult to make out- perhaps because of the line quality. The solution below involved simply dropping some yellow into areas of the design which need weighting with a bit of colour and tone.

 the final font was quite simple, the colour accents again were added with colouring pencil, i quite like the rough nature of it, and how the shade ties in nicely withe reds of the shield and banner at the bottom, if i was to further improve this piece of work i think i would perhaps make the banner larger, and the colour of the flowers more pronounced.

and finish off the belt......

final campari poster

it has been close to an age working on this piece, however i can say now i am done, positioning and palette tweaks have been accounted for and i am happy with the final image. In the end i settled upon colouring pencil as the best means of adding colour and expression, thinking about how Michael Gillette used some humble felt tips made me want to get back to basics.

the end result i am very happy with, i have shown it to the subject Michael and he is happy for us to start collaborating on an album and series of promotional artworks of him and the band. 

the pencil marks i used in the end to add some more colour, i kept things fairly simple trying to block in entire areas safe in the knowledge i could take bits out or place them in accordingly. 

rough pages

below are some of the fore mentioned scraps of paper used to create marks for overlaying in photoshop, incorporating this into my design process has greatly improved efficiency and opened up a new working process in the computer altogether.

 combining this sort of mark making with digital fills in the case of the above can quickly give an idea of the sort of palette or aesthetic the final image is going to take on. the page below could be dropped straight on top of the original sketch, the marks are so solid a colour fill would be unnecessary, usually a couple of basic adjustment filters can make all the difference.

Campari poster

Having finished the initial painting i took my image for critique, both to my tutors and to Michael Campari himself. The criticism was almost unanimous- more colour. My initial inspiration Michael Gillette used it in a very sparing manner and i remained attached to that resolve. However my tutor persuaded me to go rather mad with the colour loosening up.

as you can see free of inhibitions things take on a different energy altogether, seeing the potential of this kind of mark making made me experiment.

 my initial experiments involved using the halftone filter in photoshop, it gives everything a very vintage edge quite alike to a Lichtenstein. i experimented with lines dots and circles overlaid on a piece of digital colouring. however i have to say the end result was disappointing, even with the filter on the most extreme settings you still had to zoom in really close to notice any effect, it also seemed to turn the shade of red quite garish.  

 my second experiment involved overlaying a digital onto a watercolour texture, a very quick and easy process that gives a solid fill that much needed warmth and expression of marks. When i was working in this way i was simply blocking in areas with the polygonal lasso tool, perhaps with a bit more time it would look half decent, there was still something to clinical about the other quality of the colour so i decided against computer aid.

opting for a far more sporadic approach, again working on separate sheets of paper to put down the loose marks and then pulling it together digitally. In this case it was a bit of oil pastel, my only gripe is how the pastel stuck to the paper its both a quality i love and hate, the irregularity of the pigment would prove to be a problem in reproduction one i could do without.

Campari poster development

The poster for Plymouth based entertainer Michael Campari had been through very gradual changes from the point of conception, various critiques had highlighted so,every simple changes that needed to be made. Extending the portraits to a full bleed, completing the hat and choosing a more appropriate font, I settled on a tall slender almost deco font to help suggest the kind of evening Michael hosts. Other changes like a washed border for the type helped bring a much needed consistency to the final image. There is some more development to show the progression to the final image a little clearer I'll upload it soon.  

 

The original drawing shows some of the minor changes that went in to making the top image, slightly like a spot the difference, I see 7 altercations, might be more. The most obvious being the bleed, the original crop looks very sloppy, finishing off the hand and the hat also contributed to a more final looking image. Having the piece of work critiqued by various outside eyes ensured no stone wasleft unturned, it was a very productive exercise that continues to push my work further.